Abstract
The currently consumption-driven society produces an enormous volume of waste every day. Continuous depletion of natural finite resources by urban populations is leading the globe to an uncertain future. Therefore, to prevent further depletion of global resources, sustainable consumption and a strategic waste management system would be required. It is evident that a significant number of global non-renewable resources such as cadmium, mercury and tellurium will experience permanent shortfall in global supply within the next two to three decades. Astonishingly, the current recycling rate of these very scarce metals is significantly low in all cities around the globe. The concept of the zero waste city includes a 100% recycling of municipal solid waste and a 100% recovery of all resources from waste materials. However, transforming currently over-consuming cities into zero waste cities is challenging. Therefore, this study aims to understand the key factors waste management systems in cities such as consumption, resource depletion and possible decoupling opportunity through implementing the “zero waste city” concept. The study proposes five significant principles for transforming current cities into zero waste cities in the context of long-term sustainability. A simultaneous and harmonized application of sustainable behaviour and consumption, product stewardship, a 100% recycling and recovery of resources, legislated zero landfill and incineration are required to transform current city into a zero waste city.
Highlights
Gaps can be observed in waste management in current city planning
This study focuses on municipal solid waste (MSW) and reference data are presented on municipal solid waste from different country contexts
To achieve zero waste city objectives, we propose five inter-connected key principles that need to be applied simultaneously for transforming a city into a zero waste city
Summary
Today’s consumption-driven society produces an enormous amount of waste. This large amount of waste puts huge pressures on the city authority to manage waste in a more sustainable manner. Waste management systems have not received as much attention in the city planning process as other sectors such as water or energy. Gaps can be observed in waste management in current city planning. We gain 1billion people every 12–14 years and the world’s population grows by more than 200,000 each day [1].Currently, half the world’s population lives in urban areas and almost all regions of the world will be predominantly urban by the middle of this century [2]
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